Key Quality Attribute (KQA) | Qualityze Glossary

A KQA defines what "good" actually looks like for a product, service, or deliverable. It answers the question: "What must this thing do well for it to be considered genuinely high quality?"

In software, a KQA might be reliability — the system must stay up 99.9% of the time. In a customer service team, it might be accuracy — answers must be correct, not just fast. In a manufacturing setting, it could be dimensional precision within a specific tolerance.

KQAs are especially useful when quality is subjective or when multiple teams have different opinions on what "done well" means. By agreeing on KQAs upfront, you remove the guesswork and the arguments later.

The practical test: If your KQA isn't something you'd use to reject or rework a deliverable, it's probably not a true quality attribute — it's just a nice-to-have.

A KQA defines what "good" actually looks like for a product, service, or deliverable. It answers the question: "What must this thing do well for it to be considered genuinely high quality?"

The practical test: If your KQA isn't something you'd use to reject or rework a deliverable, it's probably not a true quality attribute — it's just a nice-to-have.